Ages of avatar: community building for inhabited television

  • Authors:

  • Mike Craven;Steve Benford;Chris Greenhalgh;John Wyver;Claire-Janine Brazier;Amanda Oldroyd;Tim Regan

  • Affiliations:

  • Communications Research Group, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG8 1BB, U.K.;Communications Research Group, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG8 1BB, U.K.;-;The Illuminations Group, 19-20 Rheidol Mews, Rheidol Terrace, Islington, London N1 8NU;The Illuminations Group, 19-20 Rheidol Mews, Rheidol Terrace, Islington, London N1 8NU;BT Advanced Communications Technology Centre, MLB 3 RM7 PP1, Adastral Park, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP5 3RE;BT Advanced Communications Technology Centre, MLB 3 RM7 PP1, Adastral Park, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP5 3RE

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the third international conference on Collaborative virtual environments
  • Year:
  • 2000

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Abstract

In this paper we describe and analyse the community building process for Ages of Avatar, a set of on-line Collaborative Virtual Environments created in MicrosoftVirtual Worlds, which form part of an ongoing experiment in Inhabited Television, aiming to merge CVEs and broadcast media. We describe the means by which the CVEs were launched, promoted and supported alongside a television broadcast channel, and how actions of viewers acting as inhabitants in the CVE can be used to provide broadcast material. We explain how the world content and their super-structure were managed to encourage the growth of a community over a short period of time. Using logs of activities in the worlds we deduce some of the characteristics of the community which was formed.